It's a "Smaller" World After All

Nanotechnology in medicine is going to have a major impact on the survival of the human race. 

-Bernard Marcus

Big things like super volcanoes and meteor strikes may kill us but never underestimate the things are invisible to the naked eye. A single superbug like an antibiotic-resistant bacteria or a nuclear fall out can put us all 6 feet below the ground. 

Throughout the years, with microscope development, that allowed us to describe and observe the cell and its organelles and then study different substances in the molecular and the atomic level, had led us to working on different technologies in the nanometric scale. In medicine, the use of such technologies is now leading us to new revolution to help diagnose and treat different diseases that have plagued us throughout the history.

 

In the field of pharmacy, over the last few years, many drugs benefited with different nanoformulations development. One of the group of drugs that has enjoyed such are Taxanes. This group of potent anti-neoplastic drugs from the bark of Pacific Yew Tree (Taxus brevifolia) are widely used to treat different types of cancer. Taxanes, eventhough useful, also attacks normal cells of the body thus producing undesirable effects on the patients' body. Moreover, these drugs are poorly soluble in water which then requires the use of toxic solvents for administration.

Nanotechnology allowed the development of different novel drug delivery systems, improving the efficacy of these medications thus making it safer to patients. In 2005, US FDA approved  Abraxane, also known as, nanoparticle albumin-bound Paclitaxel for breast cancer. Abraxane makes use of the albumin receptor so its active ingredient, Paclitaxel, can be delivered easily to the tumor cells. This thus improves the drug efficacy by concentrating the drug on the desired site, thus making it safer than the regular Paclitaxel.

In the Faculty of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Chile, different academicians and researchers are working on developing different drug formulations using nanotechnology. In 2013, Dr. Felipe Oyarzún of the Pharmacuetical Science and Technology Department, together with his colleagues, published a work about Hyaluranan nanocapsules as a new vehicle for intracellular drug delivery. In the recent years, investigators of  the Advanced Center on Chronic Diseases (ACCDiS), headed by Dr. Oyarzún and Dr. Andrew Quest of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile, were able to develop nanoemulsion of curcumin, a natural component of the turmeric rhizome (Curcuma longa) which can prevent cancer recurrence and metastasis. 

Nanotechnology provides us with a new edge to our advantage to improve our quality of life. This alone is just in medicine and pharmacy. With the advancing technology, the future is bright for humankind!